Subject: Godsfire review From: heli@nospamplease.best.com (Richard Heli) Hi, This is a re-post of a rec.games.board review from November 23, 1987 that I had archived and recently re-discovered. I trust that enough time has passed for it to be of interest again. :) The comments may be partly dated, but still interesting. Repost begins here:>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> The Long Awaited Godsfire rules/review. In this game there are 15 planetary systems and 7 national governments. The planetary systems are both on the strategic (combat) map and on a separate planet display (combat and political). The national governments exist on a separate government display (political only). ------------------------------------------------------------ GENERAL GAME: Each of the 4 continents in a planet has 3 political alignments: Extremist, Reactionary and Moderate. Each political type, when in power, will allow the industry to build only one of the three types of combat ships. Briefly, Extremists will build ships for deep space, Moderates will build flexible assault groups, and Reactionaries will build Planetary Defense Forces (which also help suppress riots). Only the Moderates will increase the economic standing of a region. Money is used to build ships, increase economic standing and subvert other planets. It comes from taxing the people. Extra money may be borrowed from the bank via the national government. (Note: I am not including the battle rules.) PLANETS are divided into 4 regions, each having separate industry, political alignment, and "combat zone". Each region has 5 economic levels ranging basically from subsistence, A-1 (agriculture), A-2, I-1 (industry) and I-2. Each industrial region must border an A region of the same level or higher. If this is not met then the industrial region must fall to an appropriate level (I-1 or A-2). An industrial region can lose its supporting A region due to foreign occupation of that region (forcing the I region to become A-2) or prolonged revolt. A player can change the party in power in a region by lowering its allegiance to 2 (lowest peaceful) and rolling a die. 50-50 chance of it succeeding (or else revolt). An Extremist or Reactionary will become Moderate and a Moderate rolls a die to determine where it goes. Each political party (in a region that is) has an allegiance index that changes downward due to a) subversion on the part of your opponents b) envy over your spending in another region c) overtaxation d) neighboring region in revolt and changes upward due to a) spending to increase loyalty b) police enforcement (form revolt to lowest peaceful status) ------------------------------------------------------------ The above system is the ONLY serious Poli-Eco game system I know of. Others are: Supremacy Economic ONLY Junta Not Serious Borderlands Economic ONLY Stellar Conquest Economic ONLY Games like Diplomacy, Supremacy and Borderlands have Politics only in that "Politicking" with your neighbor is allowed BUT IS NOT IN THE RULES. In Godsfire you have to manage revolts in your system that sometimes were NOT caused by your opponents. The politics are written in the rules AND you can further add diplomacy to your dealings with your neighbor. Mike Davis Repost ends here:>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> The game was designed by Lynn Willis and published by Metagaming in 1979. From: "Pasha and Rick Smith" Subject: Further review of Godsfire I completely agree with Richard Heli's review, this is more philosophical musings on the game that are intended to expand on what he wrote. I love science fiction war games so I'm predisposed to like this game, and I do. However I feel that this is a good game, not a great one. Mr. Heli, points out some of the nicer points of the game. Basically this game is not the same old - same old. It does things differently. The movement system is another example of this, Mr. Lynn Willis (the designer) has an impulse movement system where each turn, players will have several chances to move a unit. People will be tempted to put off moving their units until them enemy has moved so as to be able to react. However if you wait too long, you can lose the chance to move at all, if the other players suddenly pass movement options and end the phase. The science fiction 'chrome' is nicely developed. In particular I like the idea of the awesome sounding weapons breaking open time / space and allow a wave of deadly radiation from a 'hyper super nova' to sweep thru space. This destroys all units in space and devastates half of all planets (the side facing Godsfire). The players actions can cause Godsfire (people are always tempted to overstack to bring more fire power to bear). The game does not end after Godsfire, players must rebuild after the disaster, and some sub-optimum strategies for economic development can give a benefit to recovering from the disaster. However the game has problems: First it is too large, complicated and long to be a comfortable fit with my gaming group. The rules are dense, and take careful reading in places to figure out what is going on. The game play is best with more players, but that slows this already slow game down even more. Also some of the really interesting parts of the game, don't quite flow. The initiative movement system I briefly outlined above is much slower than just moving your units in turn. I think an argument could be made that the designer tried to innovate too much in this game. It has a unique political system / 3D map system / movement phasing system / economic system and they all go together pretty well. But they don't seem to mesh perfectly. The last time I played Godsfire, I made movement of military forces turn based, which hurts the game but greatly speeds play. However a gaming group which is not intimidated by long complicated games, may really enjoy this game. If you are interesting in playing Godsfire, I've often seen copies on EBay which sell for ~$12.00 to $15.00. Even better, if you live in the Vancouver B.C. area give me a call! If I have time to do some organizing and cleaning up, I'll try to post some optional rules for the game. Publishing Note: Task Force Games bought the rights to Godsfire and published a new version of it several years ago. This newer version is identical except that you only get 4 colors of counters rather than 8 in the Metagaming edition (you could special order the missing colors). Rick Smith pnrsmith@istar.ca (604) 939 - 0166